Roberto De Zerbi knows talk is cheap in bid to turn Tottenham around

Roberto De Zerbi’s relentless show of positivity must soon produce points as favourable run begins

Two weeks after returning from their summer holidays, pupils will have left school with their dreaded first homework assignment. Football is no different — you are taught throughout the week before being asked to implement your newfound knowledge over the weekend.

At Tottenham, head coach Roberto De Zerbi has cracked the whip. The brief sounds simple. Score some goals. The execution, however, is proving to be anything but.

After a stuttering start to the season — Spurs are winless and without a league goal after four games — De Zerbi has handed his players maths, physics and psychology homework. They have been made to analyse their positioning and their reaction speed. But perhaps most importantly, they have also been asked to look inward and work on not rushing their decision-making in the final third.

“In the meeting with the players, we spoke about the last third of the pitch, and I said, now I want to create individual clips for all players, for after dinner, for the players to go home and work and improve as a joke,” De Zerbi said with a smile as he addressed the media earlier this week. “I brought the homework to the players.”

While it may have been said tongue in cheek, De Zerbi is serious about addressing his side’s profligacy in front of goal.

Against Everton last weekend, they got into good positions but couldn’t take their chances. A smattering of boos at full-time spoke to a simmering frustration that De Zerbi will want to nip in the bud. That pattern has repeated itself, with Spurs better than their results suggest. As we approach a cabin-fever-inducing three-week international break, De Zerbi will be desperate for that to change.

Spurs are not the only team struggling to put results together and their next three league games will provide a clearer picture of where De Zerbi’s side are at. On Saturday they host Aston Villa, who themselves are winless after a summer of significant change, before taking on beleaguered Manchester United and newly promoted — and without a single point — Coventry City after the international break.

If Spurs are to prove they are merely suffering from early-season growing pains, then it is imperative they start to come out of their shell and show more personality and decisiveness.

De Zerbi has unanimous internal backing. The Italian’s collaborative, hands-on approach is considered refreshing and he is a positive spokesperson for the club.

Sooner rather than later, though, he will be judged on results over rhetoric. De Zerbi’s policy of relentless positivity will, at some point, have to be matched by Spurs’ position in the league table.

After they were dismantled 3-0 by Brentford over the opening weekend, Spurs have since shown signs of improvement. They had chances to take the lead before crashing out to Liverpool in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.

Omar Marmoush has wasted good chances to open his account

PA

A vicious cycle

Spurs are stuck in a vicious cycle. They start games in the ascendancy, fail to take their chances and then let the opposition come to them as confidence and energy levels plummet. De Zerbi is then left to traipse out the same line about mentality. At the start of the season he said the club’s expenditure, in excess of £300million, could not buy the mentality shift needed for his side to compete at the top table.

Now, he says Spurs need something to “click” but does not know when that catalysing moment will occur. “I don’t know if we are able to make this click Saturday,” De Zerbi admitted, as he fielded yet more questions about his team’s struggles in front of goal at Anfield. De Zerbi retains the hunger, passion and confidence in his team. “I believe in my players, I believe in this project, I have no doubt, I believe in this club,” he said. He insists they are close to a breakthrough but knows it is futile to talk about ifs, buts and maybes. “For sure we have to improve.”

The main worry is that it is hard to quantify an issue that is, more than anything, a mental block. De Zerbi is asking for a show of faith, without much indication that things will change anytime soon.

You can’t throw money at culture. It has to grow organically, which is why De Zerbi will not be rushed. Lavish team bonding dinners in Mayfair are as important as shooting practice. “It’s a pleasure going for dinner with my players,” he said of the team’s trip to the Mediterranean restaurant Bacchanalia last week.

Spurs’ trip to the same restaurant late last season coincided with an upturn in form that secured their Premier League survival.

For a team that has routinely reached new lows over the last year, De Zerbi wants to restore that familial connection. Spurs have become dehumanised to collective suffering, joy and freedom. De Zerbi has taken steps to address this. He was clear in the summer that those whose hearts were not in the project were free to leave. This has left last season’s top goalscorer Richarlison, who failed to secure a move away, in limbo. But it has made the club’s position clear. You are either all in or out in the cold.

Conversely, De Zerbi’s main priority after Lucas Bergvall signed a new contract was to connect with the young Swede on a human level. “I would like to help the guy before the player, because he’s a big potential.” Given the lack of conviction in his shot when he found himself free in the area with the score level at Anfield, there is clearly work to do.

Touch-love tactics

This tough-love approach is working. Players are staying behind to do extra work after training. They are clearly concerned by how far a disrupted pre-season has left them behind their rivals. Their eagerness to put things right, however, can’t be allowed to veer into desperation. Gripped by anxiety, Spurs have made a habit of avoiding risk in order to avoid scrutiny. They are slowly improving in that regard and move through the lines with pace and fluidity.

As ever, though, it is the final action which holds them back. The creeping doubt, or perhaps the anticipation of the rush of emotion, were they to finally cut loose the albatross from around their neck and put the ball in the back of the net or win a league game.

De Zerbi does not want to be afforded patience out of pity. “If [Spurs] lose, I lose.” He knows this project will take time and is not interested in engaging with the frenetic pace of the outside narrative.

Spurs have gone big in backing De Zerbi and have shown, with their reluctance to sack Thomas Frank earlier this year, that changing managers is the last resort even in the most dire of circumstances.

Talk of the sack is far from anyone’s mind, but talk is also cheap, and results will ultimately dictate whether De Zerbi is afforded the time to turn around the Spurs “super-tanker” Frank described back in January.